Foreign Exchanges
by Forge
Summary: A new student comes to Hogwarts, shaking things up for Harry's 6th year. However, Harry has bigger things on his mind: Voldemort has a new, sinister plot, and Harry is much more worried about staying alive.


Harry woke up in the middle of the night, his scar burning just as it had the previous summer. He tried in vain to seal off his mind, but the pain overtook him: he saw flashes of a burning house, furniture furiously being thrown and finally green bursts of light that only meant one thing. Voldemort had killed again, but he was still angry about something. His scar pulsed as he lay back down, clutching his forehead and trying to erase the pictures from his memory. Harry looked down at a body at Voldemort's feet: a woman he had never seen before looked completely normal, except her eyes were missing the tiny flicker of light that indicated that she was alive.

Harry paced his room, waiting for the prophet to arrive. The barn owl that usually delivered it was late, and Harry was impatient; he had to know what had happened the night before. Harry sat down at his desk, trying to calm his nerves, but he only looked down at the several letters he had begun that morning to Sirius, Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore about what he had seen. All of them were half finished: he had started writing Sirius's when he thought of how he wanted to start his letter to Dumbledore, he had written Hermione's in full but could imagine her nagging about Occlumency, and he had spilled a bottle of ink all over Ron's when Hedwig nipped at his fingers. He knew he had to send them, but he concentrated instead on the open window, where the cool summer breeze wafted in, willing it to bring an owl in with it.

Harry got his wish after holding up his vigil for a few minutes, and he snatched the prophet so quickly that the owl tumbled over on his floor. Harry apologized fervently as the owl clucked angrily, it's feathers ruffled, making it look enormous.

"Talking to animal's now Potter?" Dudley was standing in the doorway, his bulk hidden behind the frame that was too small to contain him.

"Don't you knock?"

"This is my house. I don't have to."

Harry thought of several rude comments he could make about how anyone would know Dudley was coming anyway, but he held his tongue. He was still holding out hope on going to the Weasley's for the rest of the summer, and he didn't need his aunt and uncle more irate than usual. Harry ignored Dudley and his taunts, instead replying with one of his secret weapons he had employed throughout the years: kindness.

"If you want, you can pet him!" He said enthusiastically as he turned to give the owl a treat and smooth down his feathers, not looking at Dudley so he wouldn't burst out laughing. Harry eventually heard heavy sounds reminiscent of a hippopotamus descending stairs. Harry glanced up, making sure Dudley was gone before closing his door and ripping open the prophet.

Harry looked and looked for an article, but the prophet was barely reporting on real news anymore. After passing several articles on caldron thickness (which Harry could only thank Percy Weasley for), he finally found something worthwhile. It was a very short article, barely larger than a classified ad: "House ransacked by dark wizards in small suburban town near New York. Details unverified at this time." It struck Harry as odd at once: there hadn't been much activity outside of England for months, and he immediately assumed that this was probably the house he had seen in his dreams. Only, he couldn't figure out what Voldemort was looking for so far away.

Harry turned back to his letters, settling on sending Sirius's first: a quickly penned letter revealing little more than that Harry had awakened during the night from a bad dream. He sent it off with Hedwig, wholeheartedly hoping that Sirius's course of action would be to immediately take Harry off to Grimmauld Place. The fact was: he was just sick of Privet Drive, as much as Dumbledore's voice echoed inside his mind about how safe it was for him there.

The summer had probably been his best with the Dursley's so far, but it still was less than stellar. At King's Cross when they had come to pick up Harry, several different members of the Order had threatened the Dursley's that if they abused Harry in any way they would come after them. The Dursley's had thus far complied, and instead of abusing him, they merely ignored him, which was a welcome change. Petunia and Vernon didn't so much as look at him, and he had only experienced a few short altercations with Dudley when he wasn't around his parents. His aunt and uncle didn't even yell at him for watching the news anymore, as they just pretended he wasn't there when he sat with them. The news hadn't contained anything worthwhile to him all summer; just the same old muggle news about insignificant things like traffic jams, potential tax hikes, and heat waves.

The biggest difference really came for Harry at dinner: they all talked as though Harry wasn't there, and they didn't even set out plates for him anymore. He had gotten used to the routine at mealtimes when he grabbed his own plate and helped himself to heaping portions straight from the pot. Harry didn't really mind this though; in fact, it was much improved from the summer before when he lost at least ten pounds from starvation. The one drawback was that he would have to listen for his Aunt Petunia to wake up Dudley for breakfast so he knew when to go downstairs.

Harry heard the distinct sound of bacon being cooked (his ears had become attuned to the sound of food cooking as he quickly realized in the beginning of summer that if he missed a meal they weren't going to save any for him) and his eyes shot to his clock. What was Aunt Petunia doing, why was she cooking breakfast at 6 am on a Saturday? Harry ventured downstairs and saw the entire family dressed and waiting for the eggs and bacon to finish. Once they were ready, Harry ate and intently listened to their conversation. He had realized earlier in the summer they would tend to talk to him not so clandestinely though through each other, which would usually tell him what they were up to.

"Well, I'm very excited about this weekend." Vernon said aloud to everyone at the table, although he snuck quite a few glances at Harry.

"Oh yes, I can't believe we'll be gone till Sunday night." Petunia said, also sneaking glances at Harry. It wasn't hard to tell that they were trying to tell him; it even sounded as though they had rehearsed this all before.

"Now I just hope no one touches the TV or any of our possessions while we're gone" Vernon said once again sneaking glances at Harry.

"Also there is no need to complain, by anyone, since there is plenty of food in the fridge." Petunia finished almost entirely looking at Harry. Harry knew exactly what that meant: he need not tell The Order that he was being mistreated. He made a mental note to write about their hilarious tip-toeing to Sirius, who would get a pretty good laugh about it.

Harry was more than delighted when the Dursley's left, as he had the house to himself and didn't have to deal with their secretive attempts to communicate or judge him. Harry settled down in the living room reading Practical Defensive Magic and It's Use Against the Dark Arts, which Sirius and Lupin gave him last Christmas. Harry was delighted to get out of his room after his dream the night before and he stretched out on the large, comfortable couch. He was just about to start chapter 12 when suddenly there was a knock on the door, which Harry assumed was probably some salesman or neighbor coming to comment on the verdure of Uncle Vernon's lawn. He opened the door only to be immediately jumped upon and hugged by none other than Hermione.

"Oh Harry, we've missed you so much!" Hermione exclaimed with her arms wrapped around him. She was not alone: Ron, and Mr. Weasley had arrived with her.

"But….what are you guys doing here?" Harry asked apprehensively. He immediately wondered if something was wrong."Well, if you haven't noticed, it's your birthday Harry. We told the muggles that they were invited to a convention for your Uncle's job, and well, they'll get to stay in the hotel for free, so I doubt they'll be hurrying back when they realize that there is no convention." Ron said slyly. Clearly they had once again tricked the Dursley's, just like they had done the year before when they wanted to get Harry out of the house. "So are you going to let us in Harry?" Mr. Weasley said as they continued to stand in the doorway.

"Oh, right. Sorry." Harry said as he moved out of the way so they could walk into the house. He realized now that all three of them had packages. Harry was dumbfounded by this, until he realized once more that it was his birthday. They laid all their packages down on the kitchen table and went to sit in the living room.

"Did you get your owl scores yet Harry?" Hermione asked as they walked to the next room.

"Hermione got all O's" Ron stepped in, "That's why she wanted to ask you."

"Ron! I was merely wondering as Harry is our friend…."

"…and you constantly want to know our grades…"

"You know that's not it!"

"Can you two please stop?" Arthur cut in, which made both of then turn red. "Anyway Harry, how has your vacation been?"

"Alright, I mean, the Dursley's haven't abused me….mainly because they started pretending I didn't exist." Harry saw anger start to creep up Arthur's face and quickly added, "I don't mind that though, it's far better than how they treated me before."

"Well, I'm glad you're being treated better, I'd prefer you to be treated like a human being though. I'd take you out of here right now if I could, but it's against Dumbledore's orders."

They all settled down and started drinking some tea that Mr. Weasley made for them. Hermione started reading the muggle newspaper, which had just been delivered; while Harry, Ron, and Mr. Weasley got into an intense debate about quidditch. Hermione tapped Harry's shoulder and he looked back at her, still feeling utterly surprised that the four of them were really all sitting in the Dursley's living room.

"Take a look at this." She said, pointing to a small article in the middle of the paper. The headline read simply: _Victim found dead, no evidence found._

"It's a muggle paper, it prolly has nothing to do with you know who." Ron said as he leaned over to read the headline.

"Oh come off it Ron, there's no evidence or anything. It goes on to say they don't even know how she died. It sounds an awful lot like a spell; after all, there are no wounds or anything." Hermione said diligently.

"Let me take a look," Mr. Weasley said and took the paper. Mr. Weasley started reading and then suddenly became chalk white and dropped his teacup, which didn't shatter but instead spilled all over the Dursley's white rug.

"What is it?" Harry asked at once.

"We have to leave. Now." Mr. Weasley got up, took out his wand, and began to suck up the stain with the end of his wand. "Take the presents and cake….we can celebrate at headquarters…" He shook his wand, which had begun spitting the tea back out, and tried again to concentrate on cleaning up.

"What's going on?" Ron asked immediately.

"There isn't any time to explain. We have to go. NOW!" Mr. Weasley commanded as all three of them just sat there staring at him. They all got up and gathered the packages and went outside to hail the knight bus, which Hermione, Ron, and Mr. Weasley had taken to visit Harry.


End file.
